Pick A Plane

Because I am naturally suspicious of people who go to extremes about certain issues, I don't go overboard to celebrate holidays. (To me it just seems like those people are trying a little too hard to show everyone how into that issue they are. If you really love something that should be enough and you don't feel as though you have to prove it to strangers. To put it in sports terms: real fans of a team don't create a persona designed to get them on the JumboTron every game. They don't care who knows they are at the game.) Which is why even though it may not seem like it because I am not wrapping myself in the flag, I am as patriotic as the next guy and love the 4th of July. Honestly, what is not to like? Most people get the day off to either hang out in air conditioning, barbecue, watch documentaries on The History Channel or do pretty much whatever you feel like. It's one of the great no-responsibilities holidays. Also, as a man who enjoys a well-performed national anthem, I enjoy it because on the 4th of July every sporting event takes them time to show them, which doesn't happen every time. These anthems are also usually followed by the topic of today's post: a flyover.

I'm not totally sure when the flyover started but, man, do we love them in this country. At this point if you are planning a sporting event and you don't include an immediate flyover people will still spend the few minutes of the game looking at the sky, assuming the planes are just running very late. We love them so much we even have flyovers at sporting events played in a dome, which means the people at the event are the only ones guaranteed not to see it. Even if you aren't at the game but live nearby there is an above-average chance you will find yourself peeking out the window to try and catch a glimpse. (Also, as a word of advice, don't try and take a picture of the flyover because it never turns out well. You end with either blurred pictures of half a jet or a fully in-focus picture of some clouds.) There are some who think the flyover unnecessarily injects a military tone where there doesn't need to be one. While you could make that case, I wonder how much that message gets through to begin with. I think most people are just interested in planes which look cool and fly fast. Besides, with all the military lingo which has been hijacked and made into sports cliches I think the tone is there whether a fighter jet circles the field once or not. The flyover is such a quick thing most people forget about it by the time the game actually starts, anyway. I think we should just enjoy the spectacle.

Personally, I'm always impressed by how well-timed they are. While the jet doesn't always show up on the very last note of the national anthem, I don't think I have ever seen a flyover in which the jet arrived halfway through the song. (Believe me, something like that would be on YouTube.) I know a good event coordinator can time things down to the second and if there was ever a group of people who were good at showing up on time it would be fighter pilots, but with all the things which could go wrong I am really surprised how often they pull it off without a hitch. It doesn't even matter what kind of aircraft it is either, as I have seen everything from stealth bombers to helicopters performing the maneuver. That's another element which I think adds to the fun - the mystery. At this point everyone knows the flyover is coming, so the only question left is what kind of flying contraption it will be. That is another point I have always wondered about: how do they pick which plane performs the flyover at which event?

Yesterday there must have been hundreds of places that wanted a dramatic flyover as the culmination of their event, so how do you pick which plane goes where? Most of the time I assume the choice comes down to the most basic of deciding factors: what is available. I'm sure most people want the latest and coolest jet to buzz the crowd, but there are only so many of those guys to go around (and I'm assuming the military actually sends most of those to where they could do the most good, which is not over the NASCAR Nationwide race). On the other end of the scale, I would think the next-highest requested kind of plane is some old World War II fighter because you get the military history along with the bad-ass visual. A few years ago they had a squadron of B-17 bombers at Norwood Airport and those were just as impressive as the newest planes. For some strange feeling, I don't think anyone specifically requests the giant cargo planes. They won't turn it away, but I'm going to guess it is a little like when you go to the car rental place - we all want the Challenger, we'll settle for the Mustang and please, God, don't let me end up with a passenger van. Not saying they don't serve a purpose but remember - there is a reason car shows never have a van section.